Tuesday, June 19, 2012

Father's Day Painting: Jackson Pollock Style

My daughter and I created a painting for "Daddy" for Father's day.  He said that he wanted a Jackson Pollock painting and I said we could create one.  Currently Pollock's Painting: "No. 5" stands as the second highest price paid for a painting: $140 million so there is no way we could afford that.  I thought this would be easy, but for it to really look authentic we had to keep working at it.  Pollocks' paintings have a a lot of passion in them.  They are considered "action paintings" and they require that you put a lot of energy into them.  Most people see them as a bunch of splatters, but if you really take a close look you can see the work put into them. With the painting experience I've had, and by trying to create a Pollock, I realize there is a lot more to these paintings.  By the way, my husband absolutely loved his painting! Here is our finished painting:


To create a Pollock we gathered:

A pre-stretcehd canvas
acrylic paints
brushes
sticks
sand
containers



Here is a short video with insight from Jackson Pollock himself of how he painted:


We began painting. We put the canvas on the ground like Jackson Pollock and circled around the painting like it said in the video above. We tried painting with sticks too because Pollock said he preferred those to brushes.



The paint was a little too splattery, (if that is even a word) so we added a little water.  Jackson said he liked a more liquid fluid paint and sometimes liked to even pour the paint on so we tried some of that too. You could use an acrylic medium to make the paint more fluid, but we didn't have any....so water seemed to work.



At first the painting looked like this and I wasn't too happy.  I wanted a little more fluidness in the painting (not just drips) and other colors.



So we added some orange paint and that seemed to have helped.  Some of you probably have know idea what I am talking about....it is just splatters, right?



Here we added more fluid white and really started throwing it around.   It is really quite beautiful....all the layers of paint piled on top of each other.



Here is a close up of all all those paint layers and splatters. I think the more you layer the paint the better.



Here is the true measure of success: paint all over me! The only place paint wasn't... was on my head!



We both had paint all over our feet and are still finding paint on our toe nails!



Here is the finished painting again with more white paint action strokes added in.



Here is, "No. 5",  Jackson Pollock's $140 million dollar painting.


Do you think our Jackson Pollock style painting was successful?

Daddy truly loooves his painting and it is already proudly hanging up in our house and he has requested to have his painting framed! Wow!

16 comments:

  1. These are indeed the art pieces you have created! I am sure it was a great great fun for children.
    Have a nice day!

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  2. this is great! Darcy (http://bedtimemonsters.blogspot.com/)

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  3. That is so funny...we had a similar Father's Day! I asked my husband what he wanted to do special on Father's Day and he said a painting party. We all moved out to the drive way and we all had canvases, tons of paints, etc. Hubby did a Jackson Pollack style painting. Oldest One did one as well, then worked in a technique of slapping it with a wet rag over and over (non-attachment to results right there...but interesting results.) Youngest One poured paint onto a large piece of butcher paper and used his toes/feet to dance, slide, and walk the paint around. And I tried my hand using brushes. A fun family painting party for all! Your picture turned out amazing BTW...and I think it is even better than an actual Pollack with the money you saved but more importantly because the memories you created. :)

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  4. How fun! We did some Pollock paintings here too, not as involved as yours and using a big curtain to catch splatters. Still, it required an emergency bath for everyone :)

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  5. O my Gosh - I love it. Love the result ...love the process! You come up with the best ideas!

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  6. It's a miracle! The extraordinary beauty. I am delighted with your blog! So many ideas for creative work with children!

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  7. This is truly beautiful! I had thought of trying some Jackson Pollock style painting with my little one, but was not quite sure if it would work. Now I feel like waking her up to start painting :)

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  8. haha, you were a Pollack masterpiece yourself it seems :) The art came out great. Pollack is on my list because he seems like such a fun one for the girls to explore. :)

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  9. Oh I love the addition of the video! Thank you for sharing that. And your artwork is AMAZING it looks beautiful (including on shoulders and feet - what messy fun!!!)

    Thank you so much for joining us on our Kids Get Arty journey!

    Maggy

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  10. Nice Post! I've just stumbled up you and enjoy your site! Our kids love all sorts of painting but, Jackson Pollock is who I credit for keeping our 11 year old son interested. This physical painting is perfect for .... toddlers and 10 -11 year old boys who are full of SO much humor, energy and creativity -- I can't imagine our oldest confided and sitting for a long time drawing tiny, tight sketches to prepare for painting -- but Jackson? Immediate fun!

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  11. I loved the paintings you created they were amazing! I'd love to try this out!

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  12. That is absolutely superb. If you could recreate it over the scale of a Pollock - which I genuinely think your painting suggests you have the talent to do I could see that *easily* on the wall of any museum - and worth 5-6 digits!

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  13. That is awesome. how hard was it to wash off the paint from your kids? I am thinking of doing this in my art class

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